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Pharmacy in Florida

When summer came, Michael Stevenhagen, a senior pharmaceutical business major from Clinton, Ohio, packed his bags and moved to Florida. But he wasn’t headed to Disney World; he was out to gain experience in the real world.

Stevenhagen is interning with one of the leading producers of generic pharmaceuticals in the world, Apotex Corporation.

When Ellen Gettenberg, director of marketing at Apotex, informed Matt Lambdin, director of experiential learning at ONU’s The James F. Dicke College of Business, of internship opportunities at Apotex’s head office in the United States, he forwarded Stevenhagen’s résumé. Gettenberg then contacted Stevenhagen directly for a phone interview and offered him the internship.

Stevenhagen plans to work for a pharmaceutical company when he graduates, so he could not pass up the opportunity for a six-month internship experience with a major pharmaceutical corporation. Apotex is an innovative global research and technology leader in generic pharmaceuticals. As the largest pharmaceutical company in Canada, the company serves its customers and partners in 115 countries, including the United States.

Plus, the U.S. head office’s internship site is in Weston, Fla. – an “added bonus” as Stevenhagen puts it. On the top floor of the Apotex’s office building, Stevenhagen was given his own desk with a computer. Every day, he creates the daily VIP News Briefs that are distributed to all Apotex employees and customers. He also collects data for Competitive Intelligence Reports, maintains the FDA New Drug Application and Abbreviated New Drug Application approval lists and updates Specialty Distributor Reports.

Stevenhagen credits ONU and the College of Business Administration for preparing him for the internship with an “education that promotes professionalism in regards to communication and work ethic.” He says, “I have noticed direct correlations between what I have learned in class and what goes on here at the corporate level of the pharmaceutical industry.” He is positive that this internship will give him an advantage in the job market when he graduates – if he can motivate himself to leave the Florida sun long enough to do so.